CENTRAL MAIL BOX — This is one of the central mail boxes at Blue Sky Villa. Betty MacGilvra who lives in the house to the left of the mail boxes fell while getting her mail last week. The postal service has now started door-to-door service to BSV residents. I-O Photo by Buck Traxler

By Buck Traxler, I-O Editor

The postal service has backed away from a decision not to deliver mail door-to-door at Blue Sky Villa (BSV).

Earlier, in a decision that came out of a regional office in Rapid City, N.D., letter carriers were no longer able to deliver mail to the houses and duplexes within the BSV retirement community.

Instead postal patrons were given a key to a centralized mail box at the end of cul-de-sacs to collect their mail and packages. Originally residents were given a one-day notice of the switch in service, but in reality it took place immediately.

The Horizon Lodge which oversees and manages BSV was scrambling to get keys to mail boxes. “They didn’t tell us,” commented Troy Shirley, manager at the Horizon Lodge. He went on to add there was zero consideration and no exceptions to the policy, “It was a horrible decision.”

Originally, what became BSV, were housing units for an Air Force radar facility and a much younger cliental.

When the city was able to obtain the property and convert it to a retirement community, the centralized mail boxes actually started to become a hazard to an older generation.

Recently BSV resident Betty MacGilvra fell while getting her mail at one of the centralized mail units. Aside from two black eyes and other bruises she was OK, except she laid there for a while before being discovered by a neighbor.

Nevertheless, from her fall she is now going to need a walker to get around which will make it more difficult to get her mail especially with the winter months approaching, bringing in the elements of snow.

However, a new change has emerged and residents are now receiving door-to-door mail service.

There was no official word about the change or where the word came from to make the switch from the centralized mail boxes.